The Gentleman at the End

Chapter 278: Chapter 277 Insight

After the discussion in the bathroom, Yi Chen ultimately decided not to involve “Yellow Skin” in the Nightmare Exploration and just let it rest well in the gentleman’s clothes room.

There were two reasons,

1. Yellow Skin was an important medium for Yi Chen in future negotiations with the Skin Market. If it were forced to express its trait during the nightmare exploration and its existence discovered by the research institute, things would become very troublesome, and might even lead to a fatal danger.

2. Yellow Skin was also considered Yi Chen’s “hidden ace.” Combined with the gentleman’s clothes, Yellow Skin could exert an unexpected skin effect. If this ace were revealed prematurely, there would be no advantage left when it was truly time to confront the nightmare’s root.

However, another important entity attached to Yi Chen – Little Grape – was an exception. Little Grape’s provided vision was extremely important; it might reveal some hidden things within the nightmare.

At that time, Little Grape would merge into the brain and fall asleep together.

After putting on the dream entry clothing that was like a bodysuit, he stepped out of the changing room.

“William, you’re so slow~. How can changing clothes take so much time? Hurry up!”

Jin urged anxiously, even excitedly jumping up and down in the sleeping area.

At this moment, the broadcast from the director spread inside:

“If you’re ready, please stand in the corresponding fish line area. The lines will connect to the suit automatically, positioning you in the optimal sleeping posture.

If you can’t fall asleep due to external reasons, raise your hand to signal us, and we will inject you with a sleep aid.

This ‘Nightmare Exploration’ is set for a duration of three hours. Once the time limit is reached, regardless of whether you have successfully made contact with the nightmare, or to what extent you have explored the Nightmare Space, we will proceed with a forced awakening.

Based on your initial exploration experience and the information brought back, we will further revise the duration of exploration, complete relevant dreaming rules, and so forth.

Special attention,

Even though we will connect your three nervous systems with ‘fish lines’ to realize thought linkage, we cannot fully guarantee that you will ‘simultaneously’ appear in the ‘same’ scene within the nightmare.

After entering the dream, the first thing you need to do is self-awareness. When you meet each other, be sure to verify each other’s identities through various means.

Currently, our understanding of the nightmare’s mechanism is limited, and there is only one requirement for this Nightmare Exploration: ‘survive’.

Good luck to you!”

The three nodded in response, and streams of fish lines descended from the ceiling, suspending their bodies in the air.

Jin looked excited, but in fact, she possessed swift control over her body. By opening a Red Lotus within her head, she calmed herself down and quickly fell asleep.

All three were skilled in sensing, each regulating their brain to fall asleep.

…

Squeak!

A surge of strong electrical current passed through Yi Chen’s brain, and he instantly woke up.

The fish lines connected to the suit also lowered him down.

Following the momentum, Yi Chen looked at the clock in the sleeping room, and the time had just passed “three hours.”

The broadcast came again:

“It seems you all merely had a normal sleep and were not affected by the nightmare, perhaps due to the magnetic shielding of the Power Station itself.

Tomorrow night we will make another attempt at dreaming. If you still cannot establish contact with the nightmare, we will relocate the Dream Entry Room outside the Power Station.

That’s it for today.”

“A dreamless sleep?”

After checking and finding no abnormalities in his body, Yi Chen was walking back to his personal changing room when two arms covered in the suit material suddenly hugged him from behind.

“Jin? What are you… ”

“Ah~ so boring! I thought I was going to have my first nightmare experience, but I wasted three hours for nothing. Thinking it over, I need to find some fun to compensate. William, you must have learned a lot from Prophet Yuri. Your body must have undergone some changes too; show me.”

“It’s not really appropriate to show here, is it?”

The narrow changing room had only one shower stall, and it felt somewhat cramped for both of them.

“What’s inappropriate about it? Isn’t there a place to shower right here… These clothes are utterly non-breathable; the temperature in the sleeping room is just too high, I’m nearly overheated to death.”

Jin, who had been holding him, suddenly pushed with force, pushing Yi Chen into the shower first.

She took slow steps towards the shower,

removing her mask along the way to reveal a delicate and petite face, letting her short hair fall just over her shoulders by taking off the hair tie.

While walking towards the shower,

she pulled down the back zipper of the dream entry suit, undressing completely,

and just as she took a step into the room… Whoosh! Jin’s abdomen was suddenly pierced by a hand.

At the same time, Jin’s expression changed.

The blush on the face quickly faded, and the charming light in the eyes was replaced by a sinister gleam.

“Wow~ to think I was discovered so quickly, worthy of being ‘the second’ to come in, I really want to eat you up…”

As the words fell,

Pop! Jin’s eyeballs burst out, with a massive number of ink-like tentacles squeezing out from the eye sockets, entwining towards Yi Chen.

However, Yi Chen showed not the slightest fear, or rather he didn’t even see the tentacles; in his eyes, he only focused on and retained one thing—’lines’.

Lines crisscrossing at different positions on ‘Jin’s body, with the starting point of one such line incidentally located at the point of piercing through the abdomen.

Death Slaughter!

The hand that penetrated the abdomen turned into the shape of a hand blade, covered and sculpted with black liquid, transforming the hand into a black blade… following the line clearly observed to slash open the abdomen.

Swish!

The perfect slaughter brought forth an exaggerated amount of bleeding, it even felt like a rain of blood had started within the confines of the bathroom.

‘Jin,’ torn completely in half, scattered across different locations in the changing room, and the corrupted flesh aged rapidly.

In the end… Pop! It exploded into a series of withered and broken tentacle fragments, completely dead.

The blood that stained Yi Chen’s body also quickly sublimated, turning into wisps of ink-colored smoke and dissipating.

Yi Chen raised his arms, adopting a posture as if basking in the sensation.

Just as Prophet Yuri had said, the perfect slaughter he had just executed brought him an indescribable sense of exhilaration that ordinary killings could never match.

“Phew! That was way too thrilling, no wonder Prophet Yuri is so addicted to slaughter~ I still need to restrain myself, my current situation requires rational analysis.

So I’ve already entered the nightmare, huh? This outfit is indeed very useful, simulating the nightmare very realistically, yet my thought process remains quite clear, and any slight inconsistency allows me to realize that I’m ‘in a dream’.

Disguising as Jin from the start? Although the mannerisms were very similar, the act of taking off the mask was rather crude.”

In Yi Chen’s knowledge of Jin, the mask was something very important to her, even if she took off every other piece of clothing, the mask would still remain on, perhaps this had something to do with Jin’s past experiences.

The act of removing the mask immediately created a strong sense of dissonance for Yi Chen and also made him realize that he was trapped within a dream.

Gazing at the shattered tentacles on the floor, the boulder hanging in Yi Chen’s heart also settled down.

Beforehand, Yi Chen was not clear whether he could inflict substantial damage on ‘nightmare substances’ in the dream or whether he could slay enemies that emerge from nightmares,

But it appears that with the aid of the dream entry clothing, it was possible to do so, and even to perfectly connect his abilities and skills from reality.

With this, the ‘Nightmare Exploration’ project could be fully launched, possibly even getting to the root of the nightmare and eliminating it before the outbreak of disaster.

…

Inside the control room.

Based on the high-frequency neural oscillations shown on the panel, as well as the strong electromagnetic interference, it was clear that the three of them were under the assault of a nightmare.

Yi Chen and Reagan quickly stabilized after a brief period of instability, indicating that they had recognized the dream and eliminated the threat in front of them.

Only Jin’s mental oscillations remained high.

[Within the Dream]

Jin was entwined with the ‘proactive’ Yi Chen in the bathroom,

The situation was similar,

As Jin returned to the changing room, Yi Chen followed her in on the pretext of a private matter and naturally steered the conversation towards ‘physical communication’.

Yi Chen even hugged her waist and forced Jin into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and let the hot water stimulate their bodies.

After a bout of hot kissing,

Yi Chen took off his clothes completely, revealing an almost perfect body.

However, the Jin in front of him was slow to strip off her clothing, with the mask only lifted to reveal her lips.

“Jin, shall I help you undress?”

Even without waiting for Jin’s consent, Yi Chen reached behind and pulled the zipper on the clothing.

But the spine under the zipper was quite peculiar, even having a part resembling the face of an infant.

Suddenly,

Jin reached behind her back and drew a swollen blood sword from between her vertebrae! With a swiftness of lightning, she cut the Yi Chen in front of her in half.

The nightmare tentacles that had not had the chance to multiply and grow erupted with malignant tumors and exploded, dying.

“Really now, so impatient… William wouldn’t act like this~”

From the very beginning, Jin had felt the inconsistency and had already recognized the problem with the dream, but she deliberately did not expose it, wanting to see just how bad the other’s poor imitation was.